IT HAPPENED TODAY
1648:
The Treaty of Westphalia was signed — ending the Thirty Years’ War.
1857:
The first football club, Sheffield FC, was formed by a group of Harrow old boys meeting in Sheffield.
1882:
Actress Dame Sybil Thorndike was born in Gainsborough, Lincs.
1924:
A letter purporting to be from Grigori Zinoviev, of the USSR, calling for socialists to start a revolution was leaked to the British Press on the eve of a general election. The letter,which was later denounced as a forgery, helped give the Tories a huge victory.
1931:
Al Capone’s gangster career ended when he was sentenced to 11 years in jail for tax evasion. Capone
was released in 1939 and died in 1947.
1945:
The United Nations Charter came into force.
1948:
Franz Lehar, Hungarian composer of operettas including The Merry Widow, died in Vienna aged 78.
Northern Rhodesia became the Republic of Zambia.
1969:
Richard Burton bought wife Elizabeth Taylor a 69.42 carat diamond, costing more than one million dollars.
1989:
US television preacher Jim Bakker was given a 45-year jail sentence and fined $500,000 for swindling his followers out of millions of dollars.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
Experts revealed that elephant poaching in Africa had declined for the fifth year in a row.
BIRTHDAYS:
Bill Wyman, ex-Rolling Stone bassist, 82; Kevin Kline, actor, 70; Sarah Greene, TV presenter, 60; Jonathan Davies, rugby commentator, 56; Caprice model, 47; Dervla Kirwan, actress, 47; Wayne Rooney, footballer, 33.